gnome-screensaver copyright issues

[Dennis Filder <d.filder@web.de>]

Hi,


I recently filed #980212 against gnome-screensaver because it appears
that one if its original developers copied and relicensed MIT-licensed
code (from xscreensaver) as GPL-2 even though he lacked the copyright
to it.  The packages cinnamon-screensaver and mint-screensaver would
apparently be likewise affected as they are forks of
gnome-screensaver.

I'm posting here in hope of answers to these questions:

1. Should this be escalated?  And if yes: to what severity?  I filed
it as a normal bug just to be safe, but I think it's at least serious.
(Note that #974011 for package xmille was due to similar issues, and
it was serious)

2. If it's RC: Is it waivable in principle, or would these packages
effectively be rendered entirely undistributable by this?

3. Who should be the one taking this on?  I'm just the messenger here
and the package maintainer team so far hasn't spoken up yet.  If it is
an RC bug, however, then the release team should ultimately take care
of this once it shows up in the list of RC bugs, no?

4. Should separate bug reports be filed against cinnamon-screensaver
and mint-screensaver?  I guess the person taking care of this could
decide that themselves, so I won't file them myself unless I get told
to.


Thanks in advance.